For the first time in his career, Trout required a stint on the DL in 2017 after he tore the UCL in his left thumb in late May. He missed 39 games as a result of the injury, but showed no lingering effects of the ailment after returning to the lineup following the All-Star break. Over his final 67 games, Trout hit .285/.429/.552, with 17 homers, 36 RBI, 12 steals, and a 58:48 BB:K in 301 plate appearances, a pace that would have made him a 40-homer, 30-steal player over a full 162-game season. The per-game production was once again at an MVP level, and it's hard to believe that he's still just 26 years old. Since the second half of the 2017 season, the Angels have upgraded the supporting cast around Trout, and his run-production numbers could tick up slightly in 2018 as a result. Even if he's no longer the unanimous choice as the No. 1 overall pick in drafts, he's still on the short list of players in the conversation.

For the third consecutive season, Arenado finished as a top-six fantasy earner among hitters. He's averaging 40 homers and 131 RBI over the past three years, and his batting average has seen steady growth as Arenado has learned to be more patient (9.1 percent walk rate last season) and work the ball the other way when he has to. There was a notable dip against right-handers in 2017, with his OPS against righties falling more than 100 points to .843, but his bounce-back against lefties more than made up for it. He remains a Gold Glove defender at third base, so he's on the field every day, plus he's productive away from Coors Field (.283/.355/.531 on the road last season). Arenado makes consistent contact, is just entering his age-27 campaign and his home park gives him an excellent floor for fantasy production. Thinking Arenado won't return first-round value again seems silly at this point.

Altuve proved that his 2016 power surge wasn't a fluke, matching his home-run total (24) from the previous year and setting new career bests with his entire slash line (.346/.410/.547) while improving his success rate on the basepaths (84.2 percent). For the fourth consecutive season, he led the American League in hits, despite his lowest total of plate appearances since 2012. A perennial All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner, Altuve has played at an elite level annually since 2014, when fantasy owners were enthralled by his ability as a 50-steal contributor. An early-season spike in strikeouts in April was offset by three straight months with a K-rate under 10 percent, and while his season rate was up from 9.8 to 12.7 percent, whiffs are not an issue for him. As part of a Houston core that figures to remain intact for at least another two years, Altuve is positioned to once again make another run at being the best player in the game.

Blackmon's fourth full season with the Rockies was his best yet, as he established new career-highs in nearly every meaningful offensive category while becoming the fourth Colorado player in the last five seasons to capture the National League batting title. With another step forward in power, Blackmon's stolen-base output dropped slightly, and his lower success rate (14-for-24, 58.3 percent) could lead to fewer green lights in the future. Other than the declining efficiency on the basepaths, he's proven to be a very good player in an excellent situation. Over the past two seasons, he's shown significant improvement against lefties, topping out with a .952 OPS against southpaws in 2017. Blackmon was extremely productive at home last season, posting a .391/.466/.733 line at Coors Field, improving his home OPS by 300 points from 2016, and topping his road OPS (.784) by 455 points. Expecting a repeat is unfair, but he was nearly a top-five player with his 2016 numbers, so he'll likely be among the first 10-12 players off the board in 2018.

Can we please stop the "Turner doesn't have the track record to be a first-rounder" nonsense? If you want to argue injury-risk, OK, you have a point... maybe. However, there's no denying that Turner's skills are elite. He deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon with respect to steals, while hitting well more than twice as many homers as them, combined. Double-digit homers with at least 50 steals is first-round material, especially since his contact rate and groundball proclivity portend a fantasy-friendly batting average. That brings us to health. In 2015, his first full season as a professional, Turner played 142 games, most at Double- and Triple-A before appearing in 27 with the Nationals. In 2016, he played 156 contests, split between Triple-A and the majors. If you want to avoid a first-round talent because he was hit by a pitch in late June, costing him about two months, that's your prerogative.

Coming off one of the most spectacular debuts, especially for a catcher, projecting Sanchez's power for 2017 was a challenge. As it turned out, using his MLEs (major league equivalencies) did the trick nicely. Sanchez's 40 percent HR/FB mark from 2016 fell to a still outstanding, but more sustainable 25 percent. If there was a downside to Sanchez's 2017 season, it was tying Yasmani Grandal for the league lead with 18 passed balls. However, blocking pitches is down on a receiver's list of skills and Sanchez fared much better with the more important framing and throwing metrics. Still, with a new skipper in the Bronx, Sanchez's high passed ball total, along with his well-publicized woes with throws to the plate in the playoffs, could result in him seeing more time at designated hitter. Fortunately, for fantasy owners, that's a good thing, assuming he still catches 20 games, which he should. Sanchez is the clear top fantasy backstop and a top-30 overall player. Drafting him in the early rounds is more a question of strategy than valuation.

Posey remains the best pure-hitting catcher in the major leagues, but his fantasy appeal has been dinged in recent seasons by steadily declining power and a depletion of talent around him in San Francisco. In a season that saw record home-run totals, Posey managed 12 long balls 568 plate appearances, marking his third consecutive season of decline in that department. He hit just three homers at home and now has a total of 16 homers at AT&T Park over the past three seasons. His strikeout and walk rates were nearly identical from 2016, with Posey posting stellar marks of 11.6 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively, but the counting totals suffered as the Giants posted the second-lowest run total in the National League. He's still worthy of a lofty investment, but Posey is now clearly behind Gary Sanchez at the catcher position, and the likes of Willson Contreras and J.T. Realmuto are closing the gap behind Posey.

Although he was limited to just 117 games last season, mainly due to a hamstring injury which cost him almost a month, Contreras still finished as a top-six catcher in standard formats. He posted a mighty healthy .223 ISO, which would have been a top-50 overall mark in baseball had Contreras logged enough plate appearances to qualify, and he improved both his strikeout (22.9 percent) and walk (10.5 percent) rates from his already strong marks as a rookie. The 25-year-old barrels the ball up consistently and he hits same-handed pitching well, as evidenced by his .273/.347/.486 career line against righties (.292/.379/.514 against lefties). Contreras has established himself as a legitimate middle-of-the-order bat in a good offense, and his ability to play the outfield and first base in a pinch helps pad his counting totals a little more than other starting catchers. Buster Posey may go ahead of Contreras in a lot of drafts, but Contreras could outproduce the veteran in 2018.